Abide With Me
by ncfan
Summary: -Finduilas, Faramir- One day, Finduilas will be able to go home. And when that day comes, she'll take Faramir with her, and they'll both go see the sea.


**Summary**: One day, Finduilas will be able to go home. And when that day comes, she'll take Faramir with her, and they'll both go see the sea.**  
Universe**: Books**  
Author's Note**: My first real attempt at writing Finduilas. I hope you all like it.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own _Lord of the Rings_.

* * *

It is not quite yet dawn, and the false light that starts to peek its head over the horizon to the east—not the light of Mordor but just an early herald for the sun—is a soft, pale gray. If Finduilas squints her eyes, and strains, just a little bit, she can almost imagine that, on the very edge of that horizon, silhouetted against the false light, there is an albatross flying.

But then, she blinks, and Finduilas is met only with the sight through the spacious balcony, the hangings fluttering slightly in the breeze, stray papers fluttering across the floor like autumn leaves cast down from their trees. The stone city is just beginning to stir, and the plains are silent.

There is no trace of the sea here, except for Finduilas herself.

And that is simply not enough.

With her leaning heavily, wearily, into the chair in her bedchamber (it's not proper, apparently, for the Steward of Gondor and his wife to share the same bedchamber), Finduilas feels Faramir shift slightly in her arms, can hear Boromir's soft, gentle breathing from the bed. Neither wake.

Finduilas shivers slightly and shifts the mantle across her shoulders, trying to find warmth. It is spring in Gondor but it always feels just a little cold to her, no matter what time of the year it is. As though the sun doesn't shine down as brightly on her as on everyone else.

She can feel Faramir's small, slightly pudgy hand curling around the blue sleeve of her gown, his head pillowed against her breast. How often has Finduilas found herself and her younger child in this situation? At Faramir's age, Boromir never sought her out the way his brother did; he was always the most independent of children, wanting to do everything for himself and by himself. And if Boromir did seek out one of his parents, it was usually Denethor. Of course, Boromir came to his mother when sick or ill; every child who had a mother to run to would have. But it was Denethor Boromir sought out the approval of, sought always to please.

And Finduilas was maybe a little glad for that. Because Denethor, unused to such things, was unexpectedly pleased to find that his eldest son wished to learn from him. And Denethor with genuine pleasure on his face was always—_is_ always—a happy sight for his wife.

Faramir is different.

Faramir perhaps knows that he's not like his brother, that he's not quite cut out for his father's vision for his sons. He is perceptive, for all that his years total to a number of three; Faramir has discerned that his father takes less interest in his development than he does in Boromir's, that though he loves him he has less time for him than what he must devote to his heir and future successor. At least Finduilas believes this is the way Faramir sees things, since even though he more actively seeks out his mother's company, he doesn't seem to harbor any hard feelings against his father—Faramir is silent on this matter.

And, if Finduilas is honest with herself, she knows that she has been guilty of favoritism as Denethor has been. Whereas Boromir is the one dearest to his father's heart, Faramir is the same to his mother, something she finds quite ironic, since Faramir is the child who, in personality, more strongly resembles his father than Boromir ever will. Both are quiet and introverted, not given to speaking needlessly. Faramir as a child already has the makings of being a grave man as his father is. Boromir is simply gregarious and even at his young age charismatic—in those respects as unlike his father as any man can be.

Maybe that's why Denethor favors the elder over the younger. He doesn't have to look into his own face when he stares into Boromir's.

Finduilas is tired, often, as well as cold. Sleep brings her no rest and as a result she often rests in her chair, listless, reading to herself or to Faramir, who, she realizes with a thrill of foreboding, seems to notice the way her already pale face grows paler and the shadows under her gray eyes only deepen instead of lighten, as though it is already night there. He sees, with canny eyes, but to Finduilas's relief he never asks, is perhaps afraid to ask, only sighing slightly and resting his head against the long, loose hair that is dark like his own.

Maybe he's wishing that his father would let him climb up in his lap and read to him like this. Finduilas wouldn't blame him if he did.

She reads many stories, but oddly, Faramir likes it best when Finduilas will take a tome of history off a shelf of the library and read to him from that. He likes history, Faramir does; Finduilas can't quite fathom what it is about history that so appeals to his young mind, but perhaps it is because history is more real to him than such things as the legend of Beren and Lúthien (Finduilas and Faramir both know that the tale is in fact real but it seems so much like a legend to them both), and Faramir likes real things. Not fairytales. Real things.

And as Faramir lays his head against his mother's chest to let her heartbeat rock him off to sleep, and dreams of great battles and statecraft and the honor and failings of Men, Finduilas lies awake, unable to find rest despite her fatigue, and dreams of home, mouthing out the names of the stars that she would lie on her back and watch as a child.

She misses the sea the way she misses home, but far more keenly than Finduilas has ever missed anything before. She misses the salt spray on her face, the sand soft and wet beneath her feet, the cry of the albatross and the soft sunlight glistening off the pink shells. There has never been any greater beauty than that of the sea, in the eyes of Finduilas of Dol Amroth; Lúthien Tinúviel and Arwen Undómiel and even Galadriel herself can never hope to compare to this, the waves crashing over the rock, clear as glass in peace and turbulent gray and blue when storming.

But Finduilas has not seen the sea, not felt the water on her skin nor the salt spray on her face, in ten years. And though her heart will always pine and sorrow away for what she has lost, in her mind she begins to forget.

Faramir would like to see the sea. He's said as much to her after begging his mother to tell him what the home of her childhood was like. He shows the same natural curiosity present in all children for things he has never seen.

One day, Finduilas tells herself, she will go home. Not forever, not forever, she knows. And not for a long time; that is too much to hope for either. But if only for a short time, it will be enough. She will take her children, and Denethor too, if he wishes.

And when that day comes, when she is home again in Dol Amroth, she'll take Faramir with her, and they'll both go to see the sea.

Maybe then, her heart will again be truly glad.


End file.
